Group seeks end to Niger Delta question

• Okowa lauds military on tackling security challenges
The Ijaw Youth Council (IYC) worldwide has called on the Federal Government to find a lasting solution to the issues that led to the late Adaka Boro’s insurrection in the 1960s.

This is coming as the Ijaw nation and the Niger Delta people celebrated the 2017 annual Isaac Adaka Boro’s day yesterday.

A statement signed by President of IYC, Eric Omare said that 51 years after Boro’s declaration of the aborted Niger Delta Republic to express dissatisfaction with the Nigerian state and 49 years after his death, the Niger Delta question still persists.

He said successive governments had failed to address the political and economic suppression and oppression of the region, which were the fundamental causes of agitations in the area.

“The IYC holds the view that addressing the Niger Delta question requires a resolution of the resource ownership and control in such a way that the people and communities of the region would have the right to the control and ownership of their God given oil and gas resources,” the statement read.

The IYC stated that addressing the resource ownership and an acceptable political restructuring of Nigeria to reflect true federalism were the panacea to the rapid and peaceful development of the country.

Omare said these were also the ideas that the late Major Isaac Adaka Boro fought for while alive and called on the political class in the region to fulfill Boro’s dreams by using their positions to develop the area and better the lot of their people.

Meanwhile, the Delta State Governor, Ifeanyi Okowa yesterday said the Nigerian Army had shown a lot of professionalism in tackling the security challenges in the country.

Speaking when the General Officer Commanding 6 Division of the Nigerian Army, Port Harcourt, Major General Ene Obong Udoh led top officers of the division on a courtesy visit to him in Asaba, Okowa said, “the military has shown a lot of professionalism in handling security issues in the country.”

He noted that the military in collaboration with other security agencies have recorded successes in curtailing security challenges, especially in the Niger Delta region, adding that his administration at the height of militancy in the region, which led to the destruction of national assets, set up a committee led by the Deputy Governor, Kingsley Otuaro.

Earlier, Udoh said he was in the state to inform the government that a new Division of the Nigerian Army has been created to cater for the security challenges in Akwa Ibom, Rivers, Bayelsa and Delta state, adding that military formations of the new division would be sited in different parts of the state.